Random Ramblings (aka let's play catch-up..)

...lots of news, good and bad. I've been a busy lady lately, sorry for the delay... But first, like the new blog format? The colors are annoyingly cute and it's sort of the NYC skyline but not really. Love it. Thanks to Michi for that. :)

Here's some pics of Michi and me baking nutella cupcakes:


Crazy about Nutella.




Michi looks like a nutella cupcake stalker here.

I've been making good use of my last month at the gym membership. I think I need to extend that for another 6 months. Jopp is a women-only gym, and while co-ed gyms certainly don't bother me, the facilities are great. Clean, chic, tons of fun classes, sauna/steam room/etc. (Come to think of it, I usually feel more comfortable with all boys, just like it used to be when i used to do ju-jitsu in Fair Lawn...The tomboy in me will never die.) It costs 74 euros a month, and with the exchange rate (~117 USD) it seems kind of steep. But then again, any gym in NYC would probably cost the same amount or more. Plus I don't really have a problem paying that price for the mental-physical benefits.

Living with Michi is so easy-- but the only hard part is the fact that he's a skinny tall guy with a salacious sweet tooth! I working on getting a harness around that dark horse that is my (semi lack of) self-discipline. It's so much fun cooking and baking together though, and we do it often. And one of the items on my "Things My Future Husband Will Do" list (which I created when I was circa 11 years old-- I know, ambitious, right?) was cook and clean with me. I originally thought Christian Slater might fit that bill (it was 1993..) but Michi has fulfilled that one since Day 1, so I'm pretty happy about that. He's very 50-50 with the house duties (I'm sure a small bit of that is because he knows I'll get pissed off if I realize I'm the only one doing the chore, but he insists that he likes doing things together, so I believe him.)

I must say though, I do have a lot more respect for my mom and all the house chores. How is it that there's always something in the sink to wash?! Ugh! My problem is that I always want to read, work on my lesson preparation, relax, play Wii, or update my blog, etc, but I always find some house cleaning to do! I can't seem to concentrate on anything else unless everything around me perfectly clean and organized. (I know, I'm a lil OCD...but damnit, I'm proud of it.) And seeing as we live in a relatively small studio apartment, it's one of that reasons why I don't really want to live in a big house. I would never stop freaking out about cleaning/washing/sweeping/scraping bits off the toaster oven/organizing the cabinets/aligning each dish towel at a 90° angle on the left-hand stool along the side kitchen partition. Ya know, stuff we all do, right? (Speaking of houses, Michi studies architecture-- he's graduating next August, yay!-- so he says that he'll be designing our future house. I'm sure he can already see me meddling with the plans left and right. Ugh, I'm such a control freak...)

Last week was Easter slash Michi's mom's Birthday. Michi baked farmer's bread for her and I baked a cake. I'm no baker, lemme tell you, and I was nervous as hell because his mom is the German version of Betty Crocker and I'm, uh, more like Julia Child let's just say. But I have a pretty good rapport with spice cakes, so I decided to make this one (minus the rum glaze for easier transport purposes.) I'm normally not a fan of Emeril for his main dishes but this recipe looked good. So I started baking up a storm and reached the last step in the recipe when a black cloud so silently creeped up behind me and clouded my mood (which, at the time, was bursting of rainbows.)

Recipe: In another large bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
Me: Ok, no problem. I can do that. Just please don't ask me to fold them into the batter.
Recipe: Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, beating on high speed, until stiff.
Me: Ok.. ok... Oh god.. no folding, no folding, PLEASE NO FOLDING!!!
Recipe: Fold the egg whites into the batter.
Me: SON OF A BITCH!!!!! GODDDDD!!!!

A whirl of bad-angel-food-cake-recipes-gone-wrong just flooded back into my mind. Oh god, I never did learn how to fold egg whites correctly. Meanwhile, the stiff peaks of the egg whites are ticking like a time bomb. Must fold now. Eggs will deflate. Cake will die. Disapproval will follow. Dignity will flee. Must Fold Now! So I furiously googled a bunch of recipes and even videos on how to fold egg whites (sons of bitches!), did the deed, chucked the batter in the bundt in the oven, fell up against the kitchen wall knees bent, and wiped the cold sweat from my brow, traumatized. (Center to side is key, by the way.)

The result? A not overly sweet, just spicy-enough, near-perfect consistency cake-- it was a hit. *Pats self on back* :)

So, what else.. Job? Check. Bike? Check. Job 2? Check. Job 3? Check. Michi says that my bike is the Worst 50 Euros Ever Spent. Ever. And it probably is, but my defense is that bikes are expensive! A decent one costs around 200 euros, which I certainly don't have available at the moment. Whatever, I'll post a picture of it when my embarrassment weans. It's probably about 15 years old, weighs a hefty 7lbs, has taped-on front and back reflector lights, 3 gears (the 2nd and 3rd are so hard to bike with, even on flat land, that I always keep it on the 1st), the front wheel hits my feet when I make a turn, it crackles and pops with ever pedal-push, and all its paint is chipped off (but it's not rusting...yet!) My friends at TakeABike (if you ever come to Berlin, rent a bike here!) gave me a free new metal basket, so that's basically my pride and joy. Oh yea, and my bike has coaster breaks which actually takes a lot of getting used to (ie, not hand breaks but the ones where you push backward on the pedals to stop.) So on top of everything else, I feel like an 8-year-old. So far, I fell off my bike once, while stopped at a traffic light, on the way home from buying the damn thing. I hadn't quite figured out the gears yet (don't ask), and a huge gust of wind blew me over-- into a pile of crushed glass. Into a pile. of. crushed. glass. Who the HELL falls into a pile of crushed glass?!?! Ugh! I mean, it must have been from a recent car accident clean up that wasn't 100% cleaned up. Great, thanks. About 1 foot ahead or back I would have been safe but, alas, Murphy's Law bit me right the ass, once again. So I get my dumbass back up again and try to laugh it off and then start to feel a warm liquid running down my right leg. Great, I'm bleeding all over my pants, all the way home. Luckily they were just some deep scratches and nothing more. (Oh, and how is it that, no matter what direction I'm going, the wind is always going against me?)

I also crashed into a door, a traffic light pole, and the back of a BMW. In the same day.

Right, so jobs. I'm working as an English teacher (what else?) for three different language schools. All Business English. It sounds like a lot, but considering each class is about 1.5 hours, it's not even full time just yet, since I have three classes with one company, two with another and one with the third. Most of the classes require you to travel to the companies to teach at their office so it's sort of like being an English-teaching gypsy. On Friday, Michi and I went to the town hall to get me registered as a resident of Berlin and get a tax number (but I don't have to pay taxes unless I work here for more than a year.) And we also opened a bank account without depositing not one penny. (Is it even possible to do that in the States?) Oh, the wonders of frugal living...I feel sort of like Winona Ryder in Reality Bites. Did I mention that I don't get my first paycheck until the end of April? *grumble*

The only really bad news I have at the moments is that I'm on a waiting list to receive a full-ride Teaching Assistantship from University of Wisconsin-Madison. I know, I had to google a map of the USA to find Wisconsin. And I'm still having trouble pinpointing when I first glance on a map. All I know is that the Giants played the Packers there in January and it was a nut-freezing -23F. So yea, the TAship would mean that I would do my masters for free in exchange for teaching 2 classes a semester there. Cheap labor for them, free ride for me. How much better can it get? Right, so, yea, the good news would be that I've been officially accepted to do my Masters by what is probably the best--and toughest-- Italian department in the nation. My other option, if I don't choose to go there anyway, would be to attend Rutgers, where I'm actually on a leave of absence there right now even though I never started. Still a very good program, but the overachiever in me wants the best. (And why not, right?) So cross your fingers, legs, eyes, and toes for me, peeps, cuz in two weeks I'm gonna be either jumping off a balcony or jumping like Balki: